He glances at his watch. “We should probably take you home. The media will be counting exactly how many minutes you remained at my place after my mother left.”

I stand quickly.

“Wait. Not so fast.” He takes my hand and tugs me down again so that I take a seat next to him.

My heart starts pounding wildly in my chest.

“Ever since I saw you walk through the door of the campaign kickoff, no one else is worth thinking about. From the moment we started talking, I knew I wanted you around.” He tugs me closer. “I want a kiss right now.”

With effort, I lift Jack by the paws and he licks Matt’s lips, and Matt laughs and wipes his jaw and mouth, petting the top of Jack’s head as he shoots me a look. “Correction, I want your kiss right now.”

I know better, but I can’t resist teasing him, so I lean over and kiss his jaw, feeling the warmth of Jack’s head between our abdomens as he settles on Matt’s lap.

“Don’t kiss me like you’d kiss your father. Kiss me like you’d kiss your secret lover. Like this.” He holds my face in one hand and presses his mouth to mine. He parts my lips with his.

Slow kissing.

The kind that curls your toes and makes every sense acute.

I respond, taking his jaw in my hands, feeling its muscles flex under my palms as he moves his mouth over mine, feeling the shadow of beard on his skin. He says, “Hmm,” and deepens the kiss as I kiss him softly back.

My mouth feels wet and swollen and tingly when we ease apart. “Come here,” he gruffs out. “Jack, scat,” Matt orders.

Jack heads to his spot by the fireplace and I somehow end up on Matt’s lap, and we kiss again, deeper, heavier, our breaths starting to labor.

Did he stop, or did I, I wonder dazedly a few seconds later.

His hands are on my hips and he’s looking at me with dark eyes.

“I find it drastically inconvenient that I think about you at the most inopportune moments. How am I to govern a country when I can’t control my own thoughts of you?”

“Every moment you think of me can’t be inopportune. There have to be some good ones.”

“True.” He frowns as he thinks about it. “In the shower, and most definitely in my bed.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Don’t put that idea into my head.”

He chuckles. “Like it’s not already there.”

I’m blushing.

I love when his full lips soften with humor and a smile spreads upward to light his eyes. But then his square jaw tenses visibly. He leans forward and moves his mouth over mine, devouring. His mouth slows, becomes softer and yet firmer.

He withdraws, leaving my mouth burning with fire.

I feel raw, vulnerable, and I don’t want him to see. So I close my eyes and kiss him softly. His lips leave mine to nibble my earlobe, and then as I try to catch my breath, his tongue comes to graze mine, playing, tasting, stroking.

He tips my chin up and forces me to meet his gaze. “I would not mind waking up to your face every morning.” I can see by the crinkle of his eyes that he’s smiling. Smiling as he looks at me, but then his smile fades, and I know what he’s thinking.

He doesn’t want a wife. Not someone long term. Not at the White House. I want to tell him I’m willing to try, that I’d be willing to stand behind him, support him, not ask for more than he could give. Instead I’m afraid I’d be lying, that I really would have no idea what I’d be getting into, that I might resent him and ache for his time and his attention, his love and comfort, things a normal man would readily give the woman he loves.

And so I tell him, “You’ve got so much on your hands, there’s no room for me in your bed.”

We’re a perfect couple, in the most imperfect situation.

He won’t be a man who’ll be there to always kiss me goodnight. Not as the president.

If I could wish one thing, I’d wish to hear him tell me he loves me.

And he never will. He can’t.

Hearing the passionate way he talked to his mother about returning to the White House, I see it clearly: he has a mission, a calling, and nothing will stop him.

Have you every loved someone so much it hurt like hell?

I hadn’t until now.

I slide from his lap and we sit there quietly.

We met eleven years ago, almost twelve now. In the years in between, it feels like he never left me or my mind. And I wonder if I was ever in his. For a moment at least. Until he saw me again at the campaign kickoff.

There is no need to speak. My knowledge of him is deeper now than when we started campaigning. And he knows me. He knows I’m afraid of heights and yet I can’t seem to keep from following him to high places. He knows I have a weakness for children and animals and am as protective about my privacy as he was when his father was president and he was thrust into the limelight.

He knows maybe I bear this situation just because I want to be near him and because he’s right: I love my country and I want to do whatever I can to make it a better place, if not for me, for the children and animals I love so much.

33

GONE

Charlotte

I rearranged his schedule so that he can take three days off. It’s been known the Hamiltons have a huge mansion in Carmel and I imagine him there, regrouping, sunbathing in the buff, maybe meeting up with his friends, clearing his head from everything, when I get a text early Monday.

Taking one more day off. You’ll have to shuffle some more things around.

M

I reply:

Count on it.

I sigh and set my phone aside, worried.

After the debate, Gordon and Jacobs have been attacking Matt relentlessly. We’re getting closer to voting day, and he’s lost two points in the last polls—courtesy of a relentless campaign against him from both parties. President Jacobs accuses him of being a philanderer with no family values, no wife.

Gordon accuses him of being a playboy, listing dozens and dozens of women he’s had affairs with, claiming his phobia of commitment is a measure of his inability to stick with one thing. If he can’t commit to one woman, how can you expect him to commit to an entire country?

Funny, this coming from a man who’s had four wives.

And in that list of women, of course, he mentions me. Charlotte Wells. How ridiculous it is for Matt to consider bringing an inexperienced twenty-something-year-old to the White House.